Chapter 21 #2
We let Riann deal with them and keep a reasonable distance.
“Safe to say they are not coming back after this.” Kilo fidgets with the drone control on his hip. The smaller one held loosely in his hand makes buzzing noises each time he nudges the toggle.
Riann relays what he’s been told and the others eye us warily, their thoughts ranging from thinking we’re unnecessary to wondering what mutation we have. Someone’s trying to get the wording right for a joke about two heads once we’re gone.
Riann comes back to us, looking disgusted, but it’s about what the other man said—referring to Kilo and me—not what he’s about to tell us.
“Everything left inside the houses is set dressing. It’s not real.” The papers were too tidy; the information on them completely irrelevant. “They wanted it to look like they deserted the place long before they actually did.”
“And the underground facility?” I ask.
“It’s been cleared.” Of course.
Of course. “Then I want to take a look.”
“Why else would we be here?” He nods toward the enormous doors. “The good doctor’s home was cleared out long ago. It’s not even staged to look like the others.”
“He might not have even moved in,” Kilo suggests, and Riann looks at him askance. “Why bother to set up shop if you know you’re just going to be working underground the whole time?”
We step inside, seeing a few of the water tanks Riann previously predicted would be in the cavernous space, but the rest of it is empty. Lines in the dust worn away by tires give clue to what we already knew. They kept their vehicles here, prepped for a hasty departure.
“Do you care if I disappear?” Kilo asks quietly.
“I’d prefer it,” Riann says, and Kilo chuckles to himself as he leaves, walking through an open door, out of sight only to return a moment later.
I don’t acknowledge him because I know no one else can see him.
Silent and watchful, he wanders the room while Riann leads me to a man with a dark band around his head, a healing wound I don’t think came from his position with the CSS.
But I ignore it and his thoughts give me no clues.
He doesn’t introduce himself.
He doesn’t want to be here and he doesn’t like Riann…
“You know where you’re going?” he asks brusquely.
“We do.”
We don’t, but I don’t correct Riann. I scan the room, being very careful not to look at Kilo.
He weaves through the other CSS personnel and I’m reminded—again—that his fidgeting and constant questions are a part of the way he makes sure he can stay invisible in these places. If they expect to hear him or see movement, they won’t think he’s there when he is.
The rest of the people here are documenting and collecting material that looks random enough to me that I ignore them.
It feels like busywork.
Following Riann through a doorway, I prop it open. When he looks back at me with a question in his pinched brows, I tell him, “I’d like to keep our exit path clear, if possible.”
He looks past me and then back. “Sure.”
It’s easier for Kilo to follow if he doesn’t have to wait for the right moment to open doors behind us.
We descend stairs that have been meticulously maintained. Not a squeak, screech, or dull thud of a warped metal plate among them.
The lights are all on too…
When we reach the first level—of three—I hesitate, grabbing Riann before he can go in. “Let’s work our way up instead.”
He almost suggests that we split up, but thinks better of it. “Whatever you say.”
“If they were going to bury something, they’d bury it deep.”
“That was almost poetic,” Riann says.
I ignore the sarcasm.
The bottom level is suspiciously clean.
Simulated sunlight comes through large panels mimicking windows.
I tap the wall with my knuckle. “Lots of Lasap… where do you think they got that?”
Riann throws a sidelong glance my way and doesn’t offer a guess… even in his thoughts.
After two branching rows of dormitory-style rooms, the level turns into a series of rooms only accessible through each other.
Medical facilities, powered down and surgically clean.
A nursery for infants… dozens of them.
A morgue. I pause and turn on all of the lights in the cold shelves to be sure they’re empty.
And an office behind blue-tinted windows that runs the length of all three rooms.
“Strange that the only entrance is all the way at the back.”
“Maybe there’s a different exit.” Or maybe they did that on purpose.
“Have they powered up the computers?” I ask, not wanting to open the doors.
“They were waiting for me. I don’t know why. There are five people up there who have higher clearance than I do.”
There’s a clatter in the office.
A shriek and a growl and… I lift my gun, and Kilo comes running.
“I thought you said this place had been cleared,” Kilo hisses at Riann as he pushes him back.
“That’s what I was told.” He doesn’t like that Kilo’s put himself in front of him. He doesn’t want to be protected.
Too bad.
“Is it another zurgle?” Kilo asks.
I ease the door open and hear two sets of thoughts. “Worse.”
The cavrinskh’s thoughts are sluggish, like it’s recently woken up. Which means it might be sluggish too. Kill it now. We can ask questions later.
Exhaling, I move inside. It takes three steps to find it. One squeeze of my trigger to kill it.
The cavrinskh was distracted enough I probably could have waited to shoot it. It wasn’t hungry, but it would have been well fed.
“How the hell did that get here?” Riann asks when he stops beside me after fighting Kilo to get inside.
“Don’t know.” I’m too busy looking at the man with half of his throat torn out, a black pool forming beneath him. “Is he one of yours?”
“It’s a CSS uniform, but it’s old. If I wasn’t paying attention, it would pass for one of ours, but… if he is one of ours and his CO didn’t immediately make him change out of that…”
“We need to figure out what that goes to.” Kilo shines his light across the floor.
The arm the cavrinskh tore off is halfway across the room, a detonator still grasped in the disconnected hand.
The dying man doesn’t realize he doesn’t have it anymore. He can’t figure out why it isn’t working.
Die die die already.
I squat down to a level that makes him look down and closes most of his neck.
The blood doesn’t stop, but there’s less of it.
“You were waiting for us.”
He laughs, choking when the movement pulls more blood into his windpipe. A spark of an idea crosses his mind a moment before he says, “Sorry boss.” He looks at Riann, still choking. “I couldn’t get rid of them for you.”
Kilo looks at Riann too, face pinched in confusion. But it’s meant to be confusing. A lie with ill intent choked out by a dying man.
I shoot him in the head before he can spit any more.
Both Kilo and Riann flinch away from me.
“He was already dead. Why let him keep talking when all he was going to do was try to pit us against each other?” Standing, I scan the room. “We need to finish up down here and then we need to go back up and see who’s surprised to have us back.”